I’ve always been fascinated with stories. But my family struggled financially, and we didn't have a computer let alone money for books. I spent many days scouring playgrounds for cans to return for the $0.05 reward. I used that treasure at garage sales, building my library. When I wasn't reading, I was adorned in wild costumes acting out plays I'd make up for my siblings. It was very Little Women-esque.
Rebecca Sky by Foxx Foto
After high school I set off on an adventure, like the kind I'd read about, landing me in The Gambia, West Africa for a year. During a siesta – as one does when the African sun at high peak – something brushed my hand and a sharp pain followed. I slapped it aside, feeling strange wiry fur and opened my eyes to find a large spider skittering away. Two hours later I was unconscious.
Luckily, there was a medical team taking care of me during that time; part of which consisted of draining poison from my wrist (gross I know, but it’s relevant to my writing journey). When I awoke days later, I was told how very close to dying I'd been — a darkened vein painted my wrist to my armpit. The poison nearly entered my main bloodstream.
In the months following, I started to develop joint pain that soon spread to the rest of my body. In no time I was bedridden. My mum had to do everything; brush my hair, teeth, help me to the washroom. It was a challenging year in bed. My family painted inspirational quotes on my ceiling so I could look up and try to stay positive. There were so many tests as doctors searched for a reason my body was shutting down. I struggled a lot with feeing robbed of being a normal teenager, and I worried that this would be my future. They concluded the chronic pain was a result of the bite and that it would be with me forever.
It was around this time that my little brother found a website called Wattpad where authors post their work for free. He encouraged me to try writing some of those fanciful stories I'd acted out in our plays as kids. I was afraid and excited, never in my life had I thought I could be a writer. Words were sacred to me – I spent my treasure on them, barricaded myself from the pain with them. Still, the fear overcame my excitement and I used every excuse not to try:
Writing hurts my joints...
Who would want to read my work?...
Eventually, I gave in to my brother, (he's much bigger than me and can be very convincing). The moment I typed those first words I found myself; all the unknowing slipped away and the words I’d spent my life loving became my oxygen. From then on, I was writing or thinking about writing. It distracted me from the pain, it was something I could do when my legs refused to walk, or my back hurt so much I couldn't get out of bed. I still remember the first sentence I wrote like it was yesterday:
"Half awake and half asleep, in the in-between twinkling of imagination, it was there she found reason to hope."
I might as well have been writing about me. I now know that all those years of dreaming out loud (I have "dream out loud" tattooed on me) were training for writing my own wild stories. When I imagine people spending their treasure to buy my book Arrowheart, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.
Rebecca Sky
www.RebeccaSky.com
